East Tokyo United
A struggling club, of which Takeshi Tatsumi used to be the star and has now returned to as a coach. Current Season Statistics History ETU was at the height of its popularity and strength while Tatsumi was a player. The team at the time was built around him and so his departure hit the team hard. Tatsumi also held the record of being the only ETU player to have been on the Japanese National Team. Although, that was only for a short time.Giant Killing manga; Chapter 25, page 04 Shortly after Tatsumi left, Fuwa became ETU's manager and it was during Fuwa's time as manger of ETU that ETU was relegated to the second division.Giant Killing anime; Episode 6 Fuwa claims that he could not do a good job with ETU because the club management would not support him properly. Fuwa wanted the club management to help him buy high profile players for his team as Fuwa believes that by importing high-level foreign players, he is able to improve the level of his Japanese players as well and thus raise the level of his entire team.Giant Killing anime; Episode 9 He also believes ETU to be a superficial team because the management is not committed.Giant Killing anime; Episode 13 ETU suffered through more bad team managers, with the club management being able to do little to assist the team, and lost all their big name players with the exception of Murakoshi, who stayed with the club to honour his responsibility as the captain. It was Murakoshi that spurred the teams return to Division 1, which took four years from the time of relegation.Giant Killing manga; Chapter 6, page 16 Kuroda was another play who stayed with ETU through its fall to Division 2, having joined the club for his rookie year during the season that saw them relegated.Giant Killing anime; Episode 11 The season prior to Tatsumi joining the club as a manager was marked by a failed attempt by the club to add more striking power to its arsenal by hiring an ex-Argentine national player by the name of Fernando. Fernando was the previous #7 and was a very expensive player. However, the investment was an utter bust as Fernando could not get used life in Japan and had low moral. Fernando performed poorly and left the club poorer due to his high salary. The club avoided relegation due largely to the efforts of Natsuki, who always scored in the games ETU could not lose. Natsuki was doing so well that he was a serious contender for the title of the league's top scorer. However, Natsuki's injury ended his season early. ETU managed to place 15th on the league ladder and thus, barely avoid relegation (teams placed 16th or below are relegated). Tatsumi's Task The club started the current season in dire straits, losing the chief sponsor with no new sponsor in sight. According to President Nagata, the club has bet its very existence on Tatsumi and if he fails to turn things around than it may well spell the end of ETU. Bringing Tatsumi back was Goto's idea, who himself took a huger personal gamble on him. Goto was warned by the Vice-president that if Tatsumi didn't work out, Goto's head would be the first to roll.Giant Killing anime; Episode 1 However, the concrete milestones Tatsumi wants to achieve has never been made clear. Goto started the season identifying that ETU needed to win to survive. Tatsumi himself has only stated and he wises to make ETU strong again and erase its losing mentality. Despite the losing streak at the beginning of the season and the loss against Albireos Niigata, or perhaps because of the losses, ETU has been getting stronger and the team cohesion improving constantly. Meaning that ETU stands a chance of finishing the season, which is quite long and only in its first half, extremely strong. Katsura Fujisawa has commented that she believes that ETU will become the centre of a typhoon.Giant Killing anime; Episode 25 However, ETU's problem isn't just that it generally languishes near the bottom of the league table. Due to the boring nature of their defensive football, they were not popular with the fans. Nor was ETU known to produce upsets. Under Tatsumi's leadership, ETU has started playing a more interesting brand of football and is capable of slaying giants. Being more attractive to fans and potential sponsors is also important to ETU's fortunes. Then there is also the prospect of National representation. As noted by Goto, there are many clubs that don't like sending players to the national team but for a small club like ETU, national representation is a way of building their reputation.Giant Killing anime; Episode 26 Blanc and Tatsumi appear to have similar coaching styles and the national roaster for the years hasn't been drawn-up for the senior team (all players referred to as national players are from the previous seasons roaster). Yuri Nagata believes that there is a strong possibility of ETU players being called-up due to the closeness she observed between Blanc and Tatsumi.Giant Killing manga; Chapter 25, page 03 Yuri's belief was partly realised when Akasaki was invited to the Japanese Olympic Team, which has an age restricts and is composed of under 23 players, during their preliminary match against Hong Kong. Current Season Despite posting a draw against the reigning champions, Tokyo Victory, in their pre-season friendly,Giant Killing anime; Episode 3-5 ETU suffered a five game losing streak once the season opened. This was largely due to their defensive line as initially Kuroda and Sugie were apt to lose their spirits when ETU was behind. They also refused to go along with Tatsumi's ideas and were replaced by Kamei and Kobayashi. However, Kamei and Kobayashi were too inexperienced and were continuously outplayed. Kuroda and Sugie eventually realised that the problem was them and returned, if only to stop Dori from suffering any more embarrassment from the defensive line.Giant Killing anime; Episode 6-8 ]] ETU still posted one more loss but Kuroda and Sugie displayed the kind of spirit that Tatsumi was looking for and as a result, Tatsumi unveiled the first of his special tactics for the game against Nagoya Grand Palace.Giant Killing anime; Episode 8-13 This began a short winning streak that was followed by a string of draws starting from the game in which Sera sustained an injury.Giant Killing anime; Episode 15-18 The string of draws exposed a lack of cohesion in the team, with Akasaki taking issue with Ishihama and Kiyokawa's motivation for playing and their general skill level. ETU ended the string of draws with a loss against Albireos Niigata but according to Sonoda, ETU played much better in the second half and would probably have posted a different result had Gino, who skipped the match due to having some issue with his foot, been on the pitch.Giant Killing anime; Episode 18 ]] ETU's next game was against the mighty Osaka Gunners, who were at the time undefeated and on top of the league table in both points and goals scored. ETU was widely expected to lose against them, with any chance of an upset victory being largely dismissed due to the fact that ETU did not have a history of upsets. The Gunners did go 2 goals up in the first half, with their dangerous striker Kubota leaving Sugie in the dust. However, the second half saw Tatsumi's plans come into effect and Osaka's playing style was put into disarray. ETU took advantage of this and scored two goals thanks to Akasaki and Sugie, with the latter having an assist from Gino during a set piece. Tatsumi then owned to Matsubara that he had intended to win the match 2-1 and hadn't planned for the need to score a 3rd goal. However, Tatsumi went on to say that he was relying on Sera to not let ETU stop at a draw - which is where many of ETU's fans were expecting it to stop as it is the norm for ETU. Sera did go on to score the 3rd goal to post a win.Giant Killing anime; Episode 19-25 Following the victory against the Osaka Gunners's ETU posted a win against Oita Triplex and a draw against JEM United Chiba in their following two league matches. The draw against JEM United Chiba was unavoidable as ETU could not field its best line-up as Akasaki was away on national duty and Kuroda missed the game due to suspension from accumulating too many yellow cards. They also won all their remaining Japan Cup preliminary matches, thus qualifying for the quarter-final stage of the Japan Cup. ETU's next league match was against Kawasaki Frontier, which ETU lost 2-1.Giant Killing Manga; Chapter 104, page 02 The game against Kawasaki Frontier was unusual in that the starting line-up consisted of a number of veteran players (Kenji Hotta, Tatsuo Ishigami and Yoshinori Sakai) who had lost their starting positions under Tatsumi.Giant Killing Manga; Chapter 90, pages 12-13 However, despite the loss, the game against Kawasaki Frontier was a confident booster for the older player and saw Tatsuo Ishigami return fully to the starting line-up in place of Ishihama.Giant Killing Manga; Chapter 105, pages 14-15 ETU won its next match 3-0 against F.C. Sapparo.Giant Killing Manga; Chapter 104, page 17 ETU also won their 15th League match against Wissel Kobe 2-1.Giant Killing Manga; Chapter 105, page 16 The game against Wissel Kobe also saw the return of Gino to the starting line-up. Gino had been rested during the game against Kawasaki Frontier and F.C. Sapporo. ETU's 16th League match was a derby against Tokyo Victory which resulted in a draw.Giant Killing Manga; Chapter 122, page 03 Following the 16th League match, the League entered the a break period that was marked by an "All Stars" game between the Japanese Stars and the World Stars from various teams in the league. Tatsumi was invited to join the coaching team for the Japanese Stars, with Natsuki and Gino included in the Japanese Stars line-up. The game was won by the Japanese Stars 3-1.Giant Killing Manga; Chapter 125-128 Pre-Season Friendly League Games ETU's total point count for league matches is currently 23 points from 16 matches with 18 matches to play. Japan Cup Preliminaries ETU has qualified for the top eight, quarter-finals, of the Japan Cup through Group C. This is the first time they have qualified in three years. ETU played a total of six games during the Japan Cup preliminaries, twice against each of the other teams in their group. Player Roaster ETU currently has no foreign players. Gino, who is half-Italian, generally does not count as there is no indication that he has played soccer at a professional level outside of Japan. ETU also currently has no representatives at the national level. Since Tatsumi took over, the ETU regulars cannot be classified as either "ageing" or "young", as about half the squad is in their early to mid-twenties and the other half late-twenties and above. Dori is their oldest starter at 33 but this is normal for a Goalkeeper as it is a position that peaks later, benefiting from experience. Tsubaki is their youngest starter at 20. During their match against ETU, a number of Osaka Gunners players comments on the speed competent in ETU's playing style. Hiraga commented on ETU's attacks being speed-based,Giant Killing anime; Episode 21 and Shimura commented on the difficulty of containing ETU following a ball steal due to the number of fast ETU players.Giant Killing anime; Episode 24 However, it must be noted that Tatsumi favour players who are both fast and have stamina, so stamina is also a key component in ETU's playing style under Tatsumi.Giant Killing anime; Episode 2 Management Trivia * In the current season of the real J. League Division 1, ETU's point total, given the number of games played, would land them in 9th place. References Category:Clubs